


Welcome back to Norway, Acar

by I_am_a_color_13



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: But with a happy ending, F/M, and a lot of a few days later and a few weeks later because I'm shit at timeline, it can also be read as a continuation of canon, it's long and messy but I hope you like it, kind of angsty i guess, persuasion au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 22:56:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12994326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_a_color_13/pseuds/I_am_a_color_13
Summary: After years of not seeing each other and being on different continents, Sana Bakkoush and Yousef Acar meet again. Is the love still there?





	1. A first meeting

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the wonderful @savedbythespell on tumblr (who wrote half of the beautiful skamelias fic) for teh yousana exchange secret santa! This is a sort of au taht I've wanted to do for a while and decided to finally start for you Anisha! Turns out it was a bad idea because it ended up being 26 pages long which isn't easy to write when you have a lot of school work. So it it feels a little clumsy and rushed at times, I apologise. I'm a bit sick as I'm posting this so I also apologise for any spelling mistakes or mistakes of any kind.  
> Side-note: the girls sqad isn't in this fic because it was too complicated for me to make them fit into the persuasion story so let's just imagine that they're away for work or something but still very much great friends.

\- Sana ? Sana ? Can you come please ?  
With a sigh, Sana stands up from the sofa where she has been trying to read for the last hour to go check on her nephew. As her parents have moved out to the country to take a break while their apartment is being renovated, Sana is staying at her big brother's house with Jamilla which is why she is baby sitting now while they are out for dinner. Because although she does have a job -hence why she couldn’t leave Oslo-, she still lives with her parents. She never thought she’d stay with them for so long, she never thought that, at 27 years old, she would be a grown-up living with her parents while everyone else that she knows is independent. But Sana is the first one to know that dreams don’t always come true and that you have to accept what life gives you and make the best of it . She’s past the time when she thought that fighting and complaining could make any change in her life.

She opens the door to the bedroom to find her nephew sitting in his bed, eyes wide opened with furrowed brows.  
\- What is it, sweetheart ? It’s really late now, you should be sleeping.  
\- Something is troubling me and I can’t rest !  
She chuckles at the way her nephew speaks. He loves to read and has started to speak in a more « grown-up manner » to make himself more  « likely to become a hero ». « What’s troubling you ? », she asks.  
-Well, he replies, you know that dinner that Mama and Papa went to ? I think I know why they didn’t bring me and I feel bad about it.

Although Sana would very much appreciate it if no mention of this dinner were made ever again, she answers « Uh uh, what is this reason then ? ». Her nephew looks up at her as she sits on the side of the bed « You know that the neighbours invited Mama and Papa because their cousin has come to live with them ? » Oh, she knows ! She knows with every fibre of her being that Maria’s cousin is in the apartment on the other side of the entrance door. She’s painfully aware of it. « Well, I think that maybe they didn’t bring me because yesterday I broke a vase, remember ? And so they didn’t want me to meet the cousin and make a bad impression because I don’t behave well when they are too many people around me because I get excited and also Maria said she was making a chocolate cake and I love chocolate cake ! I just wished I could have told them how well I was going to behave and how the cousin would have loved me ! Don’t you think he would have loved me ? »

« Who wouldn’t love you ? You’re the best little boy on the planet ! » And the cousin loved kids anyway so of course he would have loved her nephew, he was so good with kids she remembers. « The real reason why they didn’t bring you is because they’re going to be out until late which is not good for a little boy so don’t you worry any more and go to sleep now. »

She closes the door behind her as she leaves his room, wondering how it was possible that the sound of her heartbeat didn’t put him off sleep even more as it seems to be banging as loud as a drum in her ears. Sana leans on the wall repeating to herself that it’s no good to be so affected by the simple mention of him-without even his name said out loud !-, that it’s all in the past now and that there’s no point in her being emotionally compromised by something that happened so long ago and probably means nothing to anyone (especially him) any more. She goes back to reading her book, focusing on getting her mind off of the dinner happening on the other side of the building. She scolds herself for reading the same sentence ten times as she was picturing the laughter and conversation around the dinner table, as she was picturing him, smiling, laughing, talking...She tosses her book aside and turns on the television, getting lost in a random episode of a random tv show where people’s life are at stakes and much more complicated than her own plain one.

 

It happens the next day. The thing she’s been dreading and - although she would never admit it to herself- expecting for years.

It’s around four in the afternoon when Sana , who is playing with her nephew in his room , having picked him from school after work, hears voices in the living room. The unexpected voices, one of whom is her brother’s, peak her nephew’s interest and he drags her into the living room. She barely manages to grab her scarf and wrap it quickly around her head with her free hand before they find her brother and two men standing in the living room. She hears the man on her brother’s left greeting her warmly but she barely manages to answer anything else than a weak hello without even looking in his direction. The man on the right is taking up all her attention .   
He hasn’t changed much, she thinks. Different haircut, different outfit but same eyes and face and height and hands and stance and everything else. She suddenly feels smaller face to face with him. It seems surreal that he could be here, in her brother’s living room. Handsome and wonderful as ever. Standing in front of her, looking at her as though he had never met her before. 

Yousef. Her first love . The one whose heart she broke.

She suddenly realizes that her brother is calling her name and tears her eyes away from Yousef who hasn’t moved an inch since he saw her.

"What is it ?"  
"What’s up with you ? I’ve said your name three times now !"  
"Well, I didn’t hear you, what is it ?"  
"I’m going to play basketball with Yousef and Medhi, we’ve come to take a ball. Oh wait, you two haven’t been introduced ! This is…"  
"She knows who I am."

Hearing his voice again is more overwhelming than she expected. It awakes so many feelings and brings back so many memories that she promised herself to forget.

"Oh really ? How do you two know each other ? Are you two friends ?"  
"It happened when you were away for your studies", she replies ," it…"  
"...was a long time ago, but I really wouldn’t call us friends."  
No, friends wouldn’t be the right word. It never had been, even before anything happened, they never were friends.   
"Not friends ? Then … I don’t ? Anyway, no hard feelings, right ?" asks her brother with a questioning look on his face  
"Just drop it," says Sana  
"It’s really not important", laughs Yousef, "we met a few times through Elias."  
"Aaah, you’re a friend of Elias ! That’s why I thought your name was familiar! Why didn't you said so earlier?"

Sana is saved from having to talk about her relationship with Yousef any longer as her nephew suddenly starts to jump around his father asking him if he can accompany them to play outside. Sana’s brother agrees and asks her if she wants to join them. She knows that he expects her to say yes, after all basketball is her thing and it has always been but she couldn’t bear it. Not today. Not with Yousef ,and all the memories of them playing in her mind, standing in front of her. She replies that she doesn't want to and immediately notices how relieved Yousef seems to be that she refused.

Which is understandable since she broke their engagement six years ago and changed both of their lives.

Indeed, friends is definitely not the right word to describe what they once were . Yousef used to say that they were soulmates, back when they were together and that they were dreaming of a future, of a lifetime in each other’s company. He used to tell her he would love her forever and that he would never love anyone else. And she would reply the same and in these days she felt as happy as anyone can be. Their relationship was pure and their bond strong. They completed each other, they loved each other in a way that only old souls can love while till being their foolish young selves. She would never forget his face when she agreed to be his girlfriend back in highschool.

But she should have known that it was too beautiful too be her destiny. How could she be lucky enough to spend the rest of her life with him ? She thought she was once. One evening after he proposed and she said yes. Of course she did, how could she not ?You don’t say no to your soulmate after all. 

When you’re Sana Bakkoush, you do worst. You say yes and then you call him after a few hours and announce your intention to not marry him, breaking his heart and yours in the process. 

She had plenty of reasons to give him for her delayed refusal. Most of which came from her discussion with her mother which happened after coming home that night with a smile as big as the moon, more excited than she had ever been. She had entered her apartment expecting celebration only to crash down on the hard concrete surface of reality. She can still hears her mother’s exact word, convincing her to break it off because « you’re too young, Sana ! He’s not settled, he has no income, he’s a student like you !He doesn’t really share your faith, your way of life and your beliefs. It can never work. ». She never said those word to Yousef, trying to spare him even as she was crushing his dreams. But he understood, he guessed her reasons ; He guessed who had convinced her. Sana didn’t fall in love with an unintelligent man.

And mothers know better don’t they ? At least that was what Sana kept telling herself as she slowly came to agree with her mother. That’s what she repeated to herself when she heard him cry on the other end of the telephone. When she started crying in her bed after he announced that he never wanted to see her again. When her mother and father came to hug her late in the night because she was still crying.

 

And never saw her again, he did. As he had started university, he decided to move and go study abroad. And he went as far as he could from her. He decided New-York was the city for him and never came back. At least not in her life. The day he boarded the plain for the USA, leaving all his friends and family (quite surprised by his sudden decision) behind, was the day Sana lost hope of ever truly finding happiness. A good career ? She could do that. Great friends ? She already had that. But true happiness ? It was impossible without him.

She had been following his career from afar since then, always staying informed via Elias and internet. He had recently wrote a book about education and children that had had a lot of success and so he was back in Norway, living with his cousin before he could find a place of his own since his parents had moved away from Oslo. Back with success, an amazing career and everything that Sana could never have given to him had he stayed with her. She supposed it was the price to pay. In a way, her breaking up with him had allowed him to succeed in life and to find happiness. At least, she hoped so, she thought as she watched him leave with her brother and nephew without looking back at her.

 

She sits down on a chair, letting the memories of this happy time flood her mind. Basking in their beauty and their light. Losing herself once more in all the what if and all the hopes that she used to have.   
She isn’t surprised that her brother didn’t know about her knowing Yousef. He was already away for his studies when Elias started to bring Yousef home in high school. He never got to meet him and her parents never mentioned to anybody her short engagement with Yousef. No announcement is done for an engagement that only lasts three hours. She still has the ring somewhere as he never came to get it back, staying true to his promise of leaving her life. She couldn’t bear to part from it even after only wearing it for three hours.   
As for Jamila, she knows that she was close to him and that something happened between them but they only really started talking again after she broke up with Yousef and she never spoke about it with her. Jamila only knows that it ended before becoming seious and that Sana is “over it, compeltely over it.”.

She wonders, as she often does, what would’ve happened had she not been convinced by her mother and her own doubts and reservations (which, although they were numerous,she had completely put aside when Yousef smiled at her and proposed, sweeping her off her feet). And she once again mentally slaps herself for indulging into such pathetic behaviour. After all, she doesn’t fully regret her choice ! They were many obstacles to their marriage and he’s probably better off without her anyway. Probably in love with a beautiful American woman who knows exactly what she wants and isn’t afraid of anything and is waiting for him in a wonderful loft in New-York that she decorated with delicate taste because she doesn’t still live with her parents. 

Sana grunts in frustration as she stands up, shaking her head to try and get rid of the ridiculous images brought up by her imagination. She promises herself that from now on, as she is probably going to see Yousef again, she will be polite and nice (unlike today when she only stared like an idiot). She will not embarrass herself anymore, she will show him what a grown up successful woman she’s become. He might have written a best-seller book but she graduated top of her class and was now the best in her service.

Take that american-girl-in-a-fake-industrial-loft !

As she walks back to her room, she is astonished to realize that her meeting with Yousef actually went wore than she thought. She catches her reflectionii in the hallway mirror and to her horror the scarf hastily wrapped around her head isn’t the mauve one she expected but her nephew’s one covered in football players.

« Welcome back to Norway, Acar », she sighs.


	2. A picnic and a grocery store

A few day later, a picnic is organized by a group of neighbours to enjoy the coming of summer. Which is just Sana’s luck because it’s one of her rare week-end without shift and none of her friends are in town or free to hang out which means that she can’t avoid going to the picnic. She wouldn’t usually mind going to this type of event but ever since learning that Yousef was a part of the group, she has been trying to find an excuse not to go. No success there.  
She tries to be cheerful when Jamila’s pretty sister Mara arrives before they leave and decides to join them because “she has nothing better to do so why not enjoy some family time!”. Which only means that Jamila will be too occupied by her sister’s constant chattering and gossiping to talk with Sana as she intended to. And with Yousef around, Sana doesn’t feel in a mood to socialize with her brother’s neighbours. Just the thought of him looking at her again makes her nervous and unable to sleep at night. 

Luckily for her, when they arrive there are already too many people which means that she doesn’t have to go around saying hello to everyone individually. She sits down with her nephew who calls his friends to come join them and busy herself by playing with them and laughing. Ignoring the dark-haired man in the corner of her vision becomes more and more difficult as the hours go by and more and more people are going home except for a little group made of her family, Yousef’s family and a few other couples. 

She decides to get away from the group, dreading the thought of being asked to join their conversation which would mean seating near or in front of him in the circle that they are forming. She takes her nephew and the kids that are left on the nearby basketball field. Playing with them, focusing on the ball and the game, the laughter and the points, helps her clear up her mind. It’s like she can’t think anymore when she’s around him. Thankfully this time she was prepared and could focus on the kids otherwise she would have been a mess of incoherent words and intense stares at the ground.

The afternoon passes quickly as she plays and enjoy herself with her new friends. She remembers when she used to be afraid of kids, when she thought that they were almost the worst thing on the planet. But now she realizes that kids are just about the easiest people on the planet, everything is straightforward with them. Everything is so easy and simple in their life it seems. By the time they’re called back to go home, Sana feels better than she ever did since Yousef came back. She feels exhausted -these kids definitely can run!- but light. Which is why she decides to not go back home with the rest of the group and instead to walk across the park and to take her time wandering around, enjoying the last hours of daylight.

A decision that she regrets immediately when she sees Yousef and Mara walking towards her on her path. She stays frozen for a second, staring at the ground, unsure of what to do. She doesn’t want to face them and to have to talk to Yousef especially with Mara there but she doesn’t dare to hide in case they see her doing so and get offended. Well in Yousef’s case that wouldn’t change much given how he probably hates her now. She looks up and sees that they’ve stopped walking. They are now facing each other as Mara raises a hand to Yousef’s face.  
A feeling long forgotten rises in Sana chest, jealousy. A feeling she has no right to feel she reminds herself. What’s it to her if he is into Mara? She stays there watching Mara’s hand get closer to his face and Yousef doing nothing to stop it, instead he is smiling and it makes her guts twist. But she relaxes soon after, when she realizes that Mara was just putting an hearphone in Yousef’s ear, probably to make him listen to the music that she now seems to be playing on her phone.

Sana decides to go stand behind a nearby bush, the only way for her to hide before they look up and start walking towards her. Walking fast, she finds refuge in the cool shadow of a circle of trees, sitting on a bench in front of the river and waiting for her breathing to regulate itself and for them to walk past her location.  
It doesn’t seem like luck is on her side as they come to stop and sit on a bench on the other side of the bush, forbidding her to make an escape from either side of it. She only hopes that Mara isn’t about to make Youseef listen to one of her infamous playlist and that one of tham will realize that they have something very important to do and must get home immediately. She scolds herself for not taking her headphone with her as she might have been able to listen to some music of her own instead of hearing every one of their words when they start talking once the music is over.  
They move on quickly from the subject of the music to the subject of the picnic and who they came with. Sana is sure that Yousef wouldn’t mention knowing her and will keep the story simple to a version where he is only living with her brother’s neighbour but it seems that Mara already knows more than she ought to according to Sana.

“Jamilla told me you used to know he sister in law, Sana? How come?”, Sana hears her asking.  
“Hum, it’s nothing much really. I met her through a friend, replies Yousef his voice low and she recognizes the one he uses when he’d rather talk about anything else than what he is talking about right now.  
“Oh, come on!” urges Mara, “Tell me more, I barely know her but I’d love to. I’m sure you have interesting things to say about her. Were you close? Sorry if I’m being a bit noisy, I’ve been told I am a couple of times but I’m just so interested in people!”  
Sana rolls her eyes at that but waits nervously for Yousef’s reply.  
“I think you could say we were well acquainted once but she’s changed so much that it doesn’t matter now.” he says slowly. “Changed? How so?” wonders Mara. Sana hears Yousef sighs before he adds “I barely recognized her when I first saw her -I hadn’t seen her for 8 years before that- and it’s like a washed off, weaker version of herself. She has lost her wit, her sharpness, her smile. She’s only plain now. The girl I once knew is long gone. She’s moved on and grown up.”

Sana barely registers Mara scolding him for being too harsh on her as tears forms in the corners of her eyes, her stomach tightening, her hands shaking. She never thought in a hundred years that he could say such things about her. It feels as though the sky has suddenly turned grey and all she wants to do is go back home and curl up in her bed. She wishes that those things he said were only the products of his feelings towards her but she has to admit that he is right.  
She has changed since she last saw him. And not really for the better. As much as she puts herself into her work after he left, she also stopped caring much about how she presented herself, about being heard or being noticed. She was now plain and alone and it hurt to see that he saw right through her and how pathetic she had become. She breathes deep to sop herself from sobbing and listen in to the rest of the conversation when she hears Mara pronouncing her name again.

“It’s funny that you see her like that because to me Sana has always been this strong, quiet and kind presence in my cousin’s life but I have to admit that she changed ever since what happened with that boy.”  
“A boy? What boy?” asks Yousef, his voice betraying his interest  
“Yeah she had something with this guy called Jonas or something.” explains Mara  
“Jonas? Are you sure about that?”  
“Yep, he was this gorgeous Muslim doctor.”  
“Oh ok, a doctor not the other one...”  
“What?”  
“Nothing, go on.”he presses her  
“Ok, well I say doctor but he was only a student, who fell for her when he first laid eyes on her apparently. Jamila says he was completely head over heels with her and that he wanted to marry her.”  
“And...and what happened?”  
“Well she refused his proposal. Straight away. Poor guy was heartbroken afterwards.”  
“Why would she refuse his proposal, he was the perfect candidate for her” says Yousef in what Sana recognizes to be a bitter tone and it makes her clench her hands together harder because of course he must have made the comparison between him and Jonas and must have expected her to go for the ideal man according to the criteria he didn’t fill. Did he really think she was so shallow?

“Yeah, everyone was rooting for it especially her mother but she refused to even talk about it apparently. Said she was going to make her own choices in life now or something like that. Which I always thought was weird to say because as far as I know her family never forced her to do anything she didn’t want to. She’s very headstrong. I wasn’t linked to the family yet so I don’t know much more”  
“Hm...Shall we go? I have...an appointment I forgot about, sorry.”

Waiting for them to be long gone, Sana stays still on her bench, listening to her heartbeat trying to clear her mind after what happened. Trying to feel glad that Yousef now knows that she isn’t the shallow girl he made her out to be, that money and religion aren’t what win her heart when it truly matters. But all she feels is the pain at her first words about her, at the thought that now he might think that more than persuasion it was a lack of love that made her break up with him.  
She stays there for a long time, waiting for Jamila to text her saying that dinner is ready before returning home. She walks slowly as if to preserve her broken heart. She ends up skipping dinner and going straight to bed, her heart heavy, even after her prayer. 

How do you get over someone who doesn’t know you anymore?  
How do you get over someone you’re already supposed to be over?

XXXXXXXXXX

A few weeks later, Sana’s brother decides to join his parents in their country home for the coming holidays. He wants to get out of the city and enjoy the sun.  
As if summer in Norway wasn’t sunny enough, thinks Sana. 

Under her parents insistence (which was understandable as she hadn’t seen them in two months), she joins her brother and Jamila on their holidays. She couldn’t get out of work for the first week which means that she will have to commute by train every morning and every evening to get to work. And as much as she doesn’t like taking the train for so long everyday, the truth is that she longs to be away from Oslo. It is exhausting to be scared of going out of the apartment, in fear of meeting Yousef in the hallway or the elevator. She’s managed to avoid him so far or to only give him a quick hello everytime her brother brought him home. 

On the way to her parents house, as her nephew and her brother sings silly songs in the car, she lets her mind wander free, without its usual stress and invasive thoughts. She promises herself that these few weeks in the country will be good to her, that she will rest and stop worrying about someone who clearly stopped worrying about her a long time ago. She falls asleep for the rest of the trip.

Waking up, she smiles when she sees her parents standing in front of the house as they arrive in the driveway. Wasting no time, she hurries to hug them, feeling instantly at home as they wrap their arms around her and ground her, making her little tired heart completely at ease for the first time in weeks. Oh how she missed them and their quiet affection, their tenderness and support, she thinks as they look at her with slight worry in their eyes, making her understand that they know about Yousef being back and that they want to make sure that she is alright. With a smile, she reassures them before going to unpack in her room. 

 

She is shopping for groceries with Jamila, a few days later, when the unexpected happens.  
She is looking through the aisles to find a sauce that her mother requested while Jamila is getting the fruits and vegetables, when she hears a voice in getting closer. A voice that she’d recognize everywhere at anytime no matter how much she might think she is over the one it belongs to.  
She hurries next to a display sign, pretending to look at samples, not even checking to see what the display is presenting and ignoring the salesman shocked look and his attempt at talking to her (“Are you really interested, Miss??”) as she tries to discretely look over the sign in the direction of the voice. Right as she sees Yousef coming out of the aisle she just left with a woman who happens to be his mother - (What on earth is he doing here?! In this town!!!)-, she sees Jamila arriving from the fruits and vegetables section. Before she has time to signal her presence to her, hidden as she is behind the display sign, Jamila spots Yousef and calls his name with a big smile. 

Sana can only watch from afar as her sister-in-law joins him and his mother, greeting them and chatting amiably. Sana turns away from the scene, trying to gather her thoughts. What on hearth is Yousef doing in this town? Why can’t she get away from him?  
She takes a deep breath trying to calm her nerves, knowing that Jamila will come looking for her any second now and that she will have to talk to Yousef and his mother, who probably thinks that she is an awful person since she broke her engagement with her son so abruptly. Thinking of Yousef’s mother makes her remember that when she was dating Yousef, his parents had talks about getting a small house in the region. Which they probably ended up doing if his mother’s presence in this town with him is any clue. 

“Sana?” Jamila’s voice reaches her ear, with a tone of surprise and something that she can’t quite identify. Sana turns around to find Jamila looking at her with wide eyes as Yousef and his mother stare at her. “What are you doing Sana?” asks Jamila.  
“Just checking out the display, I’ve always loved supermarkets displays ever since I was a child.” Which is not true. Not true at all. She never even spared a thought to supermarket displays before this exact moment. By the look on Yousef’s face and the small twist in his lips, he knows it.  
“Surely not this kind of display?”, says Jamila with a mocking smile, pointing at the sign above her head. Sana turns around to read “Try this new 100% Norwegian beer for 20% off!!”.

Closing her eyes as she feels her cheeks reddening, Sana takes a second before she opens her eyes to find the salesman looking at her as if this was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. She would probably enjoy the humour of the situation (a Muslim woman checking out a beer stand) if she wasn’t feeling so humiliated at the thought of Yousef and his mother catching her in such a situation. With a sight, she turns around, joining Jamila and ignoring her frank smile and her teasing eyes -clearly someone is enjoying the situation- as she puts on a smile of her own across her lips. 

“Look who I’ve found Sana”, says Jamila with enthusiasm once she is standing next to her, “isn’t that a wonderful coincidence?!”  
“Wonderful indeed”,she replies, before greeting Yousef and his mother,“ It’s very nice to see you, I hope you’re doing well?”  
“Quite well, thank you Sana. It’s been a long time since I last saw you. ” replies Yousef’s mother looking her over with a neutral tone as her son simply nods in salutation.  
“Yes...yes it has been.” And Sana doesn’t know what to say anymore as she looks over at Jamila who gracefully picks the conversation up from the awkward silence and ask Yousef’s mother about their reason to be here (country house as Sana suspected) and keeps on chatting idly. 

All Sana can do is stand there looking at Yousef, progressively blocking out the sound of Jamila’s voice to focus on his face. The line of his nose, the curves of his lips, the curls in his hair and the hand going through them. The long fingers with short nails and the strong arms.  
As if he was feeling her staring at him, he looks up at her, his eyes locking with hers and finds that she can’t look away. His gaze is too intense, it won’t let her go and she doesn’t feel like she wants to let go either. A hand on her arm brings her back to reality as Jamila wants to know if she could go grab her something before she heads out for the cash register.  
The conversation seems to be over and Yousef’s mother starts to walk away after waving them goodbye. Sana looks up at Yousef before following Jamila away and she find him looking at her too as if he hadn’t stopped since Jamila had attracted her attention away from him. She raises her eyebrow at him and he looks down, turns around and just walks away leaving more confused than ever.

Jamila doesn’t say anything when they exit the shop, just gives her a knowing side glance as if to say “I know there’s more to this story than I’ve been told but I’ll keep my mouth closed for now”. Sana gives her a small reassuring smile and they head home talking about random things.

After this day, she becomes slightly paranoid that he’s watching her house, getting ready to go outside whenever she does because how else could she explain the fact that they run into each other several times almost every time she goes outside? Which is ridiculous because he probably hates being stuck here in a town where he has to see her all the time. And she knows that her parents are wary of her seeing him but they shouldn't worry thinks Sana. Nothing will ever come out of it expect her being more and more confused and distressed. He is always cold with her like they've never once been foolishly in love. He never says anything more than hello or how are you, which is already a positive evolution, although he’s always lovely and nice and funny -his usual self- with Jamila and her brother, even with her mother!

She knows that he has all the reasons to hate her and to never want to see her again but knowing why someone despise you and not feeling the pain of it are two different things. And the more she sees him the more she realizes how much she misses him. The more Jamila and her brother gets to know him and love him, the more she wants to scream that she knows him ! She used to know him better than anyone ! She loved him more than anyone ! And the sad thing is that she probably still does.


	3. An accident and a train trip

As Sana is now in holidays for a couple of weeks, someone from Jamila’s family and group of friends calls to propose a trip to their cabins and everyone accept enthusiastically the offer. As she is packing her bag, Sana hears Ahmed talking next door with Jamila. She hears him mentioning Yousef and she gets closer to the door. From what she can gather, he has invited Yousef to join them on the trip so he could make friends after being away from Norway for so long and he had just accepted the offer.  
At that, Sana sighs and leans on the wall feeling defeated. Will she ever catch a break from her past? Must she be reminded of it all the time?

She closes her eyes for a few seconds, breathing slowly and coming to the decision that she is done suffering in silence now, she will take this opportunity to try and reconnect with him. Instead of just staring and being silent, she will try to be friendly and smile. He might not answer back with a smile of his own but no matter what, she will have shown him that she is confident and that she can move past what happened between them. She just want to feel at peace now, to not be afraid of conflict and of meeting him anymore. She ignores the voice in her mind saying that he might end up hurting her even more by rejecting even her simple smile.

As she goes to finish packing her bag, she hears Ahmed mentioning Yousef again.  
“Do you think there might be something between Yousef and your sister? I noticed that they’ve grown quite close since we arrived here.”  
“They have been hanging out a few times that’s true. And he smiles a lot with her” replies Jamila. ”Do you think Mara likes him?”. Jamila stays silent for a while “I think she might but it’s hard to tell with my sister, she gossips a lot but doesn’t usually shares her personal feelings with me. But it could definitely be a thing!”  
“Well I guess we’ll have to wait and see!”

Sana stands frozen in her spot. Her hands twisting and her mind going back to all the time Mara had said she had been going out into town to walk around or take pictures in the last weeks. Sana hadn’t cared to ask if she was going with someone, assuming she would be on her own but she had been with Yousef all these times. She slowly goes back to her bed where a bag and her clothes lay, trying to process the new informations as she starts packing again. It’s logical really, she tells herself as she folds a dress and puts it in her bag. 

They’re both single and young and attractive. And of course Yousef enjoys her presence, of course he likes how funny and smiling she is. 

Sana puts another t-shirt in her bag.

Of course he goes around with her in town, and has fun and even smiles a lot! And they probably have long conversations that are nice an interesting and smart and deep and fun at the same time.

A pair of jeans quickly joins the content of the bag. 

And ...and Yousef is maybe falling in love with Mara. And maybe Mara is falling in love with Yousef because who wouldn’t? And...maybe they’ll get together and they’ll get married and they’ll have children and they’ll live happily ever after while she sulks in a corner alone. 

And it’s not fair, she thinks while violently shoving her clothes into her bag more and more rapidly, not even caring that it’s now a mess. 

It’s not fair. Not when he doesn’t even smile at her anymore! 

She shoves her bag off the bed, letting herself fall on the top of it with a grunt. 

Maybe it’s a sign, she thinks, a sign that she should move on definitely from him. She decides to keep up her decision to be more friendly towards him, she will try to move on and she will let him be happy. She lays down for a few hours starring at the ceiling until her mother calls her so she could leave for the trip. 

 

What she hadn’t realised before arriving to the cabin was how much time Yousef and Mara would be spending together and how painful it would be to see how he’s so obviously into the young woman, seeking her attention, trying to make her laugh and asking her opinion in every conversation. They’re always together laughing and fooling around.  
And as the hours pass, she can’t help but stare at them (so much for trying to move on, she thinks, but how could she think that she could move on from Yousef Acar?) and it seems that he often catches her staring. And everytime he looks up to find her looking at him, he stays there, holding her gaze for a few seconds. It’s a new look he gives her, not a painful one, it’s not friendly but it’s not cold either. It’s warmer somehow.

She also notices that he is less cold towards her, perhaps being into Mara made him forget about his own negative feelings for her a little bit. He replies to her greetings and he doesn’t ignore her, when she makes the group laugh with a snarcky comment, he laughs out loud. He once chooses her for his team when they’re playing a board game. To hear him says her name sends more shiver down her spine than it ever did. They’re sited next to each other during the game, Mara on his other side. And he obviously pays more attention to Mara but he also makes sure to ask Sana’s opinion everytime they have to make a move. 

She doesn’t know what to make of this situation, him simultaneously dating Mara (it’s became painfully obvious at this point and if it’s not a thing yet, it’s soon going to be one) and not being cold with her anymore. 

The one thing distracting her mind is a friend of Yousef, Karim, who came to visit from the US and who joined Yousef on the trip. He’s a friend from New-York who studied with Yousef at college. Recently divorced, he reveals to Sana that he needed a break from his daily life and came to Norway to find some kind of calm and to rest, motivated by Yousef who was “always going on about his country and how beautiful it is, it was getting annoying so I had to come and see for myself if he wasn’t lying!”

“Do you think he was lying now that you’re here?”Sana laughs. “Well I obviously need more time to form a proper opinion but I have to admit that he might have been right about some aspects. The nature here is incredible!”he replies looking around.  
They are standing on the deck in front of the house as they’re speaking, facing the valley and the hills covered with flowers and Sana laughs at his exaggerated breathing.“You don’t find air like this in New-York, I need to make some reserve!”  
In the next two days, she finds herself spending most of her time with Karim who is probably the most talkative person she knows, and that’s saying a lot because she is friend with Vilde. Somehow Karim seems to always shave something to say or a question to ask. And it’s curiously agreeable thinks Sana as she finds herself talking about literature and her work and art and travelling and languages and even food! And just about anything that Karim deems interesting enough to talk about. And it hurts less to see Yousef laughing with Mara if she herself is laughing with someone.

 

Everything changes two days later when they go on a hike around the hills. Sana has been feeling down the whole way up because without Karim to entertain her and distract her because he was feeling a bit sick (“my stomach isn’t used to the European food, give me my American junk food back, Sana”), she had to bear the constant sight of Mara and Yousef laughing and flirting.  
As they near, the top of the hill where they planned on taking a break for a snack, Mara who was running around palying some kind of game with Yousef, and had already stumbled a few times, only saved from falling because of Yousef being by her side, gets her foot caught up in a root and falls head first.  
Sana sees everything happening in slow motion. The fall of Mara ahead, her arms trying to grab and get hold of Yousef who has her back to her and who turns too slowly to catch her. Mara’s head hitting the road violently, right on top of a roots, her eyes closing and her body rolling on the side of the road as blood starts to run down the side of her face. Yousef running to her side and screaming her name. Everything happened so fast that most of the group stays frozen when Mara body stills on the side of the road. Even Yousef stops when he notices that Mara isn’t moving anymore. 

And that’s when Sana's reflexes and experience come in handy as there’s no need for her to think, this is automatic and familiar to her. Putting aside her emotions, she gives instructions while tending to Mara, running a small diagnosis. She stays focus on the young woman who is now being considered as nothing but a patient by her mind, laying unconscious in front of her, the side of her face covered in blood. Sana zones out the rest of the group only asking for help to the person next to her, she realizes afterwards that it was Yousef. She makes sure that Mara isn't moved until she gets in the ambulance after the help has arrived from one of the Hiking Help Centre. 

While Mara is being put in the ambulance, she walks up to Jamila and reassures her quickly with a hug. “It’s going to be alright, Jamila. I know it’s worrying that she still hasn’t woken up but the fall was really sudden and harsh. I’m going to make sure that everything is fine, I’ll take care of her and she’s going to be ok. I promise you that.” She hugs her sister in law and then, she quickly gets in the ambulance with Mara. 

Before being able to fully enter the vehicle, she feels a hand on her arm, tugging at it to make her turn around and then she hears a voice.

“Sana.” It’s Yousef. She turns around.  
“Is she..is she going to be alright?” His hand on her arm is shaking slightly. She takes a deep breath, puts her hand on his hand. The shaking stops immediately. She looks him straight in the eyes, “She is hurt but she will get better. It might take some time as I can’t assess the damage now but she will get over this. You need to calm down and help Jamila now. She and her family are going to need calm and strong people with them.”

He stares at her and it seems that he is leaning slightly into her, “I will help them, but,...”he bites his lips “...it’s my fault, Sana. We were playing and I didn’t catch her. I told her to be careful and I should’ve been more careful..I...”. Looking back quickly to see the ambulance driver signalling her that they’re ready to drive off, Sana then looks back at Yousef and puts a hand on his shoulder. “It’s nobody’s fault, Yousef and this kind of thoughts isn’t useful. You couldn’t have prevented it, she wasn’t your responsibility and now it’s useless to think about it. I’m going to go now, please drive Jamila to the hospital next. Can you do that for me?” He nods.

“Good, I’m going to go now, I’ll take care of her.” The ambulance doors close and the last thing she sees is Yousef with what seems to be something close to awe on his face.

A few hours later, Sana is ready to exit the hospital, having left Mara in the hands of the doctor,s till unconscious and with a few more stitches but without any blatant risk. She joins Jamila, Ahmed and Yousef in the corridor, Jamila rushing at her side to get informations. Sana reassures her quickly and explains that she can go inside her sister’s room now. Her sister in law almost run past her, clinging on her husband’s hand to make him follow her.  
When the door to Mara’s room closes, Sana is left alone with Yousef. She expects that he might want to stay and wait until Mara wakes up or at least until he can visit her but to her surprise he only asks if she’s feeling alright.

“Me? Yeah I’m not the one lying unconscious in a hospital” she quips back  
“Uh, yeah yeah that’s right.”he stumbles a little bit on his word she notices . It’s probably the worry about Mara,“But the nurse already came and told us about Mara’s state, which is worrying but stable apparently -although I don’t really know what that means especially given that she is unconscious and has several cuts on her head- but you, you must be tired after the hike and then taking care of Mara and the hours at the hospital and the stress of the urgency although you’re not usually one to loose your cool...”  
“Oh...”She doesn’t know how to respond to this sudden outburst of care from his part. “No, I’m...I’m fine. Kind of used to it you know, what with it being my job and all.”  
“You work in the emergency unit?” he asks as he slowly starts to walk towards the exit -probably to get some fresh hair to calm down before returning to Mara’s side. “Uh no, but I did an internship there so I know the drill.”

He hums softly and then stays silent for a while as he push on the elevator button to bring it up to their floor. “I couldn’t find a spot near the entrance so I had to park quite far from it,”he explains as they get into the elevator, “You can wait for me while I get the car if you want.” “Wait you’re driving home?” He looks at her seeming puzzled by her confusion “Well yes, I’m driving us back.” he explains. “Oh sorry, I thought you might want to stay with Mara.”she explains.

He looks down “Nah, she’s...she’s got her family, I’ll come back later. The others are probably waiting for us to get back anyway.”  
He’s still feeling guilty about what happened understands Sana, he’s blaming himself and that’s why he doesn’t want to stay . Because it only reminds him of what he thinks is his fault and his mistake. She wishes she could just soothe the frown between his brows with a gentle touch of her finger, make him relax but she controls herself. They’re not close enough for this kind of attention anymore. 

They walk silently to his car and drive to the cabin where everyone is anxiously waiting for news. When it is announced that Mara won’t be coming home in the next days and maybe more depending on how she feels when she wakes up, no one else is in the mood to keep on having fun and playing gales as the young woman is lying unconscious in the hospital. Sana stands in the living room, letting Yousef do the explanation, only providing the needed medical details. Yousef takes her to the side once he’s done explaining Mara’s situation to everyone and how Mara’s parents are going to arrive in the evening and asks her if she feels like making the trip back to their parents resident town.

“What do you mean?”. He scratches the back of his head, running his fingers through his hair “Well, as we are the only two non close-family members or close friends of Mara’s or her family, I mean I know you’re married to her sister’s husband but everyone here is like a cousin at least (aside from Karim who’s too sick to go back to Oslo now and who has a train tomorrow anyway), I thought we could go back this afternoon. Make some space for Mara’s parents. I think Maria and Tom might be going back as well” he explains gesturing in the direction of a couple, friend with Jamila and Ahmed ”,But since they live in the other direction, they can’t take me. I don’t want to intrude on Mara’s family and I thought that maybe you’d want to go back to your parents as well since you’re going back to work soon.”

Sana doesn’t question how he knows about her starting work again but has to agree to his logic. The group as it is is already too big for the cabin (although it’s a big one) but it’ll become impossible to breathe in once Mara’s parents arrive. And when Mara has to leave the hospital, she is going to need a quiet house not a packed-to-the-rooftop-one. She does wonder why he doesn’t want to stay given how clearly infatuated with the young woman he is but she thinks that it might be his guilt acting up. His insistence on leaving with her has nothing to do with her and everything to do with him blaming himself.

“Alright” she replies “I’ll go pack my things. I suppose we’ll be going back in train since he car we came in was Ahmed’s. Could you order the tickets while I call Jamila?”. He nods and she goes to her room.

By the time they leave, Mara still hasn’t woken up but her signals are good and Sana isn’t too worried. The couple leaving at the same time drive them to the train station and they stay silent during the ride. When they get in the train and sit next to each other, Sana can’t help but feel a bit nervous about the train ride being the longest time they’re going to spend together, on their own, ever since she saw him again. She didn’t feel nervous during the trip back to the hospital but seeing him tensed and obviously nervous beside her, she can’t help but be reminded of his obvious affection for her sister-in-law’s sister. 

To her surprise he doesn’t bring up the subject of Mara, instead asking her when the train starts if she enjoyed their trip to the cabin before the incident and if she’s liking her job. Her reply is short because she isn’t sure if he’s really interested or just trying to make conversation because he is usually so polite and wants to be distracted. Seeing him fidgeting on his seat, she acts on impulse and reach out for his arm. Her fingers catch his wrist softly, forcing him to look her in the eyes.  
“Yousef, stop stressing out. She will be fine. Her body needs to rest. You’re not to blame. So stop moving and calm down.” He nods, still looking her in the eyes.  
She gets lost in them for a few seconds before realizing that she is still holding his wrist. She opens her hand, letting go of his arm, her hand suddenly feeling useless without the touch of his skin. She shakes her head to regain control over her own thoughts and notices how he lets out a breath when she lets go of his wrist. 

She turns her attention to the window, looking out at the landscape, trying to focus on the landscape and not the feeling of him seeing next to her, so close. So close that she almost wonders if he’s not leaning into her, as if the armrest between them wasn’t a thing. Their knees touch at one point, separating in a second, and she closes her eyes, putting her forehead on the cold window to focus on something else, anything else even that boring parperwork she has to prepare for a patient. 

Without wanting to or noticing it, she falls asleep. She goes from her forehead detaching from the window and her head resting on her seat to her cheek resting on a soft fabric. She stirs a little and hears Yousef talking about her with a little boy in the train who is sited in front of them which is what wakes her up in the end.

“What does she do when she’s not sleeping on the train” asks the little boy. “  
She’s a doctor,”replies Yousef. “Is she a good one?”  
Yousef chuckles “Yeah, she is. I think.”  
“You think? Why aren’t you sure?” Yousef shifts slightly on his seat and that’s when Sana realizes that the fabric her cheek is resting on is probably his scarf because she has her head resting on his shoulder. He must have put his scarf on his shoulder for her comfort and she doesn’t know what to make of this so she opens her eyes.

“Well she’s never been my doctor you see, so I know she’s good but I’ve never experienced it”, says Yousef. “Well, we can just ask her, she’s not asleep anymore” says the little boy as she opens her eyes. 

She lifts her head from Yosuef’s shoulder, feeling herself blushing as he quickly turns his head to look at her. She gives him back his scarf with a soft thank you and he takes it without a word. She can’t read his face and the way he looks at her so she turns to face the little boy. “So what it is you want to ask me?” 

The little boy, about five years old, looks her straight in the eyes and asks “Are you a good doctor?”She leans on the train table to meet his eyes and whispers “The best.”. The little boy smiles at that and apparently satisfied with her answer, turns around and goes back to his father sitting on the other side of the compartment. Sana leans back in her seat, looking quickly at Yousef who has now a small smile on his lips.

“The best?”he asks with a raised eyebrow “Yeah, it’s bad to lie, especially to children.”He chuckles at her reply and she lets out a small smirk. They stay silent for a bit but it’s a comfortable silent. There is only twenty minutes left on the train when the radio starts playing a song that Sana, and Yousef, only knows too well comes up on the radio. I feel it coming by The Weeknd. 

Sana’s mind is filled with memories as the first notes start playing, only realizing that she said the name of the song out loud when Yousef says “Yeah, that’s a good one. It’s songs like this that make me feel old though.”  
“Why is that?” she asks, turning to look at him fully  
“Sana, you weren’t even eighteen when it came out. How could it not make me feel old?” She laughs a little at that, ignoring the butterflies in her stomach awoken by the way he said her name. With a soft smile on his lips and a warmth in his voice. “Remember when you caught me dancing on it in your living room?”

Now Sana is laughing a little more, remembering his face when he had turned around and how startled he was to see that he wasn’t alone “You were so embarrassed, it was hilarious, truly.” “I was so into it” he laughs “and then I turned around and felt so bad because you were standing there staring at me like you couldn’t believe it!”  
I still sometimes have troubles grasping the concept of someone like you being truly and fully real and in my life, she thinks. Because it’s truly not fair for the rest of us.

“Well, I really couldn’t believe it! I thought I was going to find Elias being an idiot and instead I find you dancing in my living room. Talk about a surprise.”  
He smiles and looks up, as if his mind was replaying the scene in front of his eyes, saying quietly “I really felt so embarrassed, like I was the biggest fool.”  
“It’s alright, everyone’s a fool at some point. It’s in the past now.” He looks away from her, his eyes darkening as he lets out a muffled “Yeah, it is.” He shakes his head and turns back to her, his face neutral. 

“I’ve read your book” she says, trying to get the conversation away from any mention of their shared past and the tension coming with it.  
His face lights up slightly, his eyebrows raising in surprise “Yeah? What did you think?”. She smiles and replies that she really liked it and found it very interesting. “It deserves all the success it got, Yousef”. 

His eyes scan his face and she can’t help but feel that he is trying to decide whether or not she’s being honest in her praise. He seems to think that she is and thanks her, adding that he is flattered, just as the train enters the station.  
They stand up to grab their bags and get off the train, crossing the station and coming out of it, unto the street, together. She has her phone out to call a taxi and offers him to share a ride which he agrees to. They wait the car in silence and quickly settle into it once it arrives. 

She is being dropped out first and she she gets out of the car, she sees him opening his door. When she goes to open the truck to retrieve her bag, he is already there opening the trunk as if she had a full suitcase that needed his assistance to take out and not just a small bag. Always the gentleman, she thinks.  
Looking up at the house, Sana sees her mother standing with furrowed brows on the step of the door. Not wanting to give her the wrong impression, she quickly grabs her hand from the trunk before Yousef has time to give get it. She rushes back inside not before waving back a hello with a smile, looking at him right in the eyes when he replies with quick “See you soon.” 

Sana hugs her mother quickly, putting her bag down on the dining room table, explaining in details Mara’s accident and her situation, hoping to distract her mother from mentioning Yousef and the fact that she came back with him. She doesn’t want questions now. She doesn’t want to talk about it. She wants to keep it all to herself for now. Because she knows it won’t last or happen again and just wants to keep all the smiles he gave her today as precious memories not tainted by her parents’ remarks.

Hoping to see him again, Sana takes on all the grocery shopping duties in the coming week. But she only meets his mother who reveals to her that he has gone back to Oslo for a job interview at a school. After telling his mother to wish him good luck on her behalf (and no, she doesn’t care what his mother might think about her son’s ex-fiancée now wishing him luck for a job interview. Because they are, if not friends, at least friendly towards each other now and Sana doesn’t see why she should refrain too hard from showing that she cares), she gets the reply that the interview was actually a few days ago. That he is not in Oslo anymore.  
Before she can asks if he is coming back to his parents’ house, Yousef’s mother replies that he has gone directly to visit Mara after leaving Oslo. Sana’s heart sinks in her chest. This only confirms to Sana’s dismay that he must be in a relationship with Mara. Of course he couldn’t, doesn’t want to, stay away for too long no matter how guilty he might feel, especially now that she’s being awake for three days. He must have run to her side as soon as he heard the news.

So much for seeing him soon, she thinks as she walks back to her parents’ house.


	4. A coffee shop and a concert

A few days later, Jamilla and Ahmed go back to Oslo, bringing Sana back with them. Which means no more train in the morning to get to work and train in the evening everyday for Sana which she is greatly thankful for.  
She can’t help but wonder everyday when she is going to see Yousef next. If he is going to go back to Oslo or stay with Mara?  
The uncertainty of them meeting again, the fact that Jamila and Ahmed don’t ever mention Yousef and Mara being a couple or just anything that could give some finality to the situation and let Sana know how she truly feels about it all, the fact that Mara is calling regularly and making progresses now but never mention Yousef is driving Sana slightly crazy. 

She hates uncertainty, she hates doubts, she hates the hope bubbling in her chest everytime Mara calls and never mention Yousef. She hates that everytime she leaves her brother’s apartment, she looks over at the neighbours’ door, hoping for Yousef to come out of it, having finally returned to Oslo. And the worst thing is that she can’t do anything about it. There’s no one she can talk to about this with that could solve anything.  
Because the thing is there’s nothing to solve. The man she loves seems to be in love with someone else and it seems that everyone is ignoring it and the reason why he is in a situation of being single in the first place is because of herself. So unless time travel is the thing, there’s nothing that Sana can do.

 

After a long reunion with the staff on a Tuesday evening, Sana is walking home with a colleague. Protecting herself from the pouring rain under his umbrella, she puts on a fake smile, ignoring most of his rambling as they enter a coffee shop to take a break from the rain.  
It’s not that Amir isn’t nice, it’s just that she is tired and the rain is soaking her hijab and dripping down her back and she just wants to get into bed especially after that heated debate at the meeting. Amir is actually a really nice guys and she suspects that he might be a little into her but she can’t spare him a thought. He very nicely proposes to get her a coffee while she sits on a stool near the window. Sana supposes there’s no harm into accepting a coffee from him and goes to look for a free spot. 

Turning around, she bumps shoulder into someone trying to come out of the coffee shop. Looking up, she finds Yousef’s face staring at her with wide eyes. And goodness be damned she feels her knee weakening a little bit when she meets his gaze and she takes in his smell and when she realizes that he has a hand on her elbow to stabilize her after she bumped into him. He shouldn’t look this good with wet hair, she thinks, no one should look this good and sweet and warm and lovely and cute with wet hair and a small smile on their lips. 

She decides to say stop making a fool of herself and smile back instead of just staring at him. 

“Hello, Yousef” she says softly, surprised by how steady her voice is when all she wants to ask is if he’s back in town for good or if he’s dating Mara but that would be a bit too blunt and none of her business sadly. So she settles for small talk.  
“Hi, Sana.” he smiles.  
“How are you?”. He looks outside at the rain pouring down and replies “Well, not so good considering how soaked I’m about to get.” She laughs at that “Do you really have to go outside when the weather is so bad?” He squints his eyes a little “Are you asking me to stay inside with you?” Before Sana has time to clear her throat and think about what she could possibly answer to that question without sounding desperate, he keeps on talking “I actually have a meeting so yeah I have to face the rain. Wish I could’ve rescheduled it but it is what I is.”  
“Well good luck!” He smiles at that and she asks “How is Mara doing these days? I’ve heard she’s recovering well?” He frowns at that “Mara? Uh, I don’t know I haven’t seen her for a few week. I checked up on her a few day after the accident, when she woke up but I haven’t seen her since I think she’s doing well though. Karim has been visiting her.”  
“Karim?” she can’t hide her surprise  
“Yeah,” he replies, “They got quite close, started texting or something and then he visited her.” 

He doesn’t seem sad or troubled by this, she notices. He is completely chill with it as he sips on his coffee, so maybe he wasn’t that close to Jamila’s sister after all? “Well, uh that’s good I suppose.” 

He blows on his coffee slowly and then looks at her with a smile “Yeah, maybe he’ll finally get over his ex. Anyway, how are you?” She looks up, “Good, jut came out of a meeting with my staff.” His eyes flicker across her face.“Didn’t go well, I suppose,” he says as he keeps on studying her face. She raises an eyebrow at him “Can you read minds now? Is that what you learned in America? Do they teach that?”  
He laughs “No, they don’t. I just...You had your crossed look on when you mentioned the meeting.” 

He looks down as she realizes that it means he still knows her face more than most people do even after all this time He had always been great at picking up her micro expression and it seems that he still has some knowledge left on How To Read Sana Bakkoush. 

He opens his mouth to ask something when she hears her name being called at the register. Turning her face around, she spots Amir waving at her, trying to get her attention. He is asking if she would like some extra cream with her coffee. 

Next to her, Yousef is standing still for a few seconds then lets out a chucckles “Sana Bakkoush, putting cream in her coffee. Has the world gone mad?” And she can’t help but laugh a little at that because of course he remembers that she hates cream in her coffee (which doesn’t stop her from loving a few extra spoons of sugar) and at the same time it makes her sad to see how much he still remembers of her after all these years, how this is just a bitter reminder of how close they used to be. How well they knew each other. 

Amir calls her again, gesturing for her to come at the register and she looks back at Yousef who seems to be staring at Amir, his face a bit too neutral to reflect what really is going on in his mind.

“You should go” he says,”he seems to be eager for your company”  
“Yeah, I’m going to join him, or I’ll end up with more cream than coffee in my cup,” she sighs.

“Well, I’m going too then.” he say says he turns to the door. “Have a good metinng” she adds when he opens the exit door.” He looks behind looking across her face and then back to Amir still waiting for her “Yeah, you too.”

And just like that he’s gone and Sana is left walking back to Amir.  
“Who was that?” he asks with a curious smile. “Just a friend of my brother” she replies.  
“Oh it’s cool that you’re friendly with your brother’s friends!”  
“Yeah, yeah. Is the coffee ready?” she cuts him.

 

Two weeks later, as the summer holidays are getting to en end, Mara comes back to Oslo, fully recovered and accompanied by Karim. Nothing serious is happening between them but given the glances they give each other and the way their faces light up when they are in the same room, Jamila and Sana have no doubt that something soon will. They’ve even made a bet about which one of them will make the first move and where they’ll go on their first date. It’s trivial and silly but Sana is truly happy for both of them and of course relieved to see that truly nothing is going on between Yousef and Mara anymore. 

She hasn’t really talked to Yousef since the meeting at the coffee shop, only greeting each other when they meet in the hallway. He’s always friendly but , sadly, they always meet up when one of them is in a rush. He holds the door for her when she gets in the elevator, always asking in a breath is she’s well. She helps him pick up his grocery when he let them fall after she runs into him, she opens the door when he exit the building. Their interactions are short but they always leave Sana with a warm feeling in her stomach. 

 

He comes for lunch the day Mara visits after coming back to Oslo and Sana has the confirmation that he doesn’t have any feelings left for Mara. She watches him close but his eyes never darken, his face never shows any sign of regret when looking at Mara or at Karim. He is free. For the first time since he came back to Norway, Sana is sure that Yousef Acar’s heart belongs to no one. 

And just as she comes to this conclusion, he turns around and walks up to her with a smile. Sitting next to her on the couch where she’s been observing people for the last ten minutes, he leans slightly near her, causing their shoulders to bump. She smiles at him and she sees his eyes looking at her dimples, his gaze going soft as she asks him how he is doing. 

“Better now that I'm surrounded by nice and lovely people rather than boring editors.” he replies  
“Editors? Are you writing another book?”  
“Oh no, I don’t think so but they want me to take part of a collection of essays or something and to interview foreign author and translate. It’s all just ideas now, nothing concrete but I thought I’d listen to their ideas anyway.”

Looking at his face, she can see that although the ideas are interesting to him...”You won’t do it, will you?”  
He looks over at her “Are you the one reading minds now?”  
“Maybe,” she replies with a smirk” Or maybe I can just see that there’s something else you want to do.”  
He sighs “Don’t get me wrong I like writing, and publishing my book was great but it was basically a final project for my studies and now that I’m done studying or doing internship, I want to work and do something concrete. I want to do something with all these things I’ve written about.”

“Things like...?”she asks softly.  
“Teaching. Yeah I think I’d like that.” he replies, passing his fingers through his hair. “I think that it would suit you very well” she smiles.  
And when he looks at her with a smile of his own, the smile he had when he needed reassurance and he got it, the one he gave her everytime she complimented him, the one that made her want to shout that yes of course he was good, and smart and capable of so many things. And it warms her heart and makes her stomach flutters that he shared with her his ideas for his future, that he confided in her. As if he trusted her again in some way. 

He asks her in return how her work is going, if she likes it, if she finds it interesting, if the staff is nice, if her colleagues her nice. He asks a lot of question about her colleagues, she notices, asking if she’s made friends or if she’s closed to anyone and the picture of his face when he looked at Amir with that fake neutral look in the coffee shop comes back to Sana’s mind.

A few minutes later, they are interrupted by her nephew and the few friends he invited over who want Sana to play with them. Hesitating for a second, she glances at Yousef who nods at her. “Would you like to join us?” she asks. She doesn’t want to disappoint her nephew with whom she hasn’t been spending much time lately but she also doesn’t want to stay away from Yousef for too long. He stands up enthusiastically to the children’s joy and follow them to the back garden where they play basket ball until they are called by Ahmed to come up for lunch. 

On the way up to the apartment, in the stairs, Yousef comes up to her.  
“I have to say that I am surprised at how good you were with the kids back there.” She stops in her tracks. “What does that mean?”  
He laughs at her reaction “Well, ...I do I put this…? You used to basically run away from kids and declare that they were evil.” She huffs at that “I never did such things I just didn’t like them much that’ all.”  
“Didn’t like them much? That’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one,”he smirks.

She starts walking up the stairs again “Well whatever my feelings for kids might have been in the past, and they never were as bad as you make them - I’m going to ignore that laugh you just did-, I had to look past them to baby sit my nephew and then his friend sin the last years. I am now proud to say that I can handle children quite properly.”  
“Wow, it almost sounds like you enjoy their company.”  
“Shut up, of course I do,”she laughs lightly “I’m not that bad!”  
“No, you’re not. I’m actually quite proud of you for overcoming your fear.”  
“My fear?... They’re just children, they’re human, they’re not monsters, they’ve never been a fear, just an inconvenience.”  
“You used to think differently”, he teases her. 

They’ve reached the apartment by now which means that she can only throw at him without warning the basketball she had been holding before the door opens and they are asked to go clean up their hands with the children before eating. And when he laughs as he struggles to catch the ball, she admires how natural it feels to have this banter with him, to just tease each other and to feel so comfortable around him. 

She tries not to get her hopes up, telling herself that although he might be acting much more friendly now, it doesn’t mean that he is in love with her again, that she shouldn’t hope for more than friendship from him, light banter and smiles. But it’s hard to control her hopes when he looks at her across the tables during the whole lunch, when he says yes a few days later to her invitation to join her and her family at an open air concert in the park for the week-end. When the smile he gives her when she invites him is so bright, when he looks so truly glad to be going somewhere with her and touched that she invited him. 

 

It’s even harder to not get her hopes up when he joins them at a family/friends dinner, the day before the concert. They are sited next to each other and he is amiable during the whole dinner, making her laugh quite often if only for the way he talks with the little girl sitting on his other side. And they smile at each other a lot, not really participating in the ongoing conversation but instead giving each other side glances to comment silently what’s being said. She makes him laugh a few time sin return by strategically times raise of eyebrows or snarky short remarks. And she gives up on counting how many times they share a smile. 

As they are eating desert, she hears Karim talking with Ahmed about a story that happened to him in New-York. At first she isn’t paying close attention, listening with one ear, while motioning at her nephew to stop eating his ice cream with his fingers. But suddenly, she can’t focus on something else than what Karim is saying.  
Because he is talking about Yousef. He is telling a story about Ramadan with Yousef doing something apparently funny and at first she thinks that she didn’t hear right because, although he talked about maybe starting to pray again before they had broken up, he had never truly done Ramadan even when he was a practising Muslim from what she can remember. And yet it seems that now he was doing it ? Could it mean that he had gone back to his faith?

She keeps on listening and from what Karim says, and she can’t actually concentrate on what the story is about because she is just looking for a confirmation, whatever happened, happened at a mosque in New-York. After a Friday prayer during Ramadan that he and Yousef had attended.

She can’t quite believe her ears and she feels like she’s going to burst out of joy. 

Yousef going to the mosque. Yousef fasting. Yousef praying. Yousef being a practising Muslim.

It’s too good to be true. She turns to look at him only to find him looking at her and smiling. And in this moment, aside from everything it could mean for them in her foolish mind, she just feels truly happy for him. Happy that he found his way. She raises her eyebrows at him as if to ask “Is it for real?”. And he simply shrugs which she interprets as a “Yes, this is me now.”

Going back at eating her dessert, Sana thinks with a little smile that mint ice cream has never tasted better.

 

The next evening is the evening of the concert. Sana has troubles staying still as she waits for her family to be ready. She has been fully dressed for 30 minutes and is now waiting, impatient to be at the concert and to finally see Yousef again. She hopes to sit next to him and to spend as much time as possible with him this evening. She is fidgeting with her bracelet while listening to Ahmed trying to persuade her nephew to put on his shoes.  
Although she would deny it to anyone who would ask, Sana spent hours deciding what to wear and how to do her make-up, settling on a pair of large high-waisted white pants with a light grey top and a dark jacket adorned with blue embroideries on the sleeves. Her hijab is blue as well, wrapped in a turban with an embroidered hem. She feels beautiful and, trust me reader, she glows in that outfit. 

She sighs of relief when her brother finally announces that his son and wife are ready to go and she ushers everybody in the car. As soon as they arrive at the park where the concert is taking place, her eyes scan the crowd gathered around the stage for his face. She stands on her toes, ignoring Jamila teasing voice asking if she is looking for anyone special. She moves forwards in the crowd, trying to get a better view of the people sitting there.  
She thinks she might have found him when a hand on her arm forces her to turn around and face the one person she wasn’t expecting to see tonight. Amir.  
She internally sighs as he starts rambling about how nice it is to see her tonight, how much he likes the program for tonight, how clear the sky is and he goes on for a while, not letting her speak much aside from a few short words. He finally catches her attention when he points as someone behind her. “Isn’t that your brother’s friend walking over there?” he asks.

She turns around quickly, her heart beating faster and sure enough, she sees Yousef. He is walking with his hands in his pockets, looking around him, as if he was looking for someone. She excuses herself from Amir and starts walking towards Yousef. She realizes when he finally sees her and gives her a wide smile that he was looking for her in that crowd, that he wanted to find her.

He walks faster to join her, looking handsome with his curls loose around his face and his eyes glistening. She smiles at him when they stop in front of each other.  
“I’m really glad you could come tonight, Yousef. How are you?” He shifts on his feet and takes his hands out of his pockets “I’m really glad you invited me,” he replies. His eyes scan her outfit, assessing the different elements, and he adds with a wink, “Especially since we’re matching.” And she stops staring at his face to look over his outfit and he is indeed wearing the exact same colours as her including a shit the exact same shade of blue as her headscarf.

His face seems to lighten up as she laughs, only to get dark and for his smile to disappear a few seconds later. Surprised by his change of mood, she looks over her shoulder, following his gaze. And to her surprise Amir is walking towards them. She only has a few seconds to assess the situation , a situation in which Yousef’s expression closely resembles jealousy, before they are joined by her overenthusiastic colleague who’s now shaking hands with Yousef.

“I don’t think we were introduced properly last time, I’m Amir. A friend of Sana.”  
“We work together,”she corrects, hoping to make Yousef understands that she isn’t really that close to Amir. She gives him an apologetic look, trying to get him to understand that she wishes Amir wasn’t here. Sana notices Yousef’s eyes getting darker and his shoulder tensing.  
“Yousef, an old friend of Sana”, he says shaking Amir’s hand.  
And she doesn’t imagine the way he emphasizes the world old, as if trying to compete with Amir. And it makes her heart flutter the way he now defines himself as an old friend of hers when he said to Mara all these weeks ago that they had never been friend. But she doesn’t have time to dwell on what it means, because he quickly scans the crowd around them and takes a few steps back .“I’m going to go find myself a seat, you two enjoy your evening.” 

Sana can’t hide her disappointment at that and it seems that Yousef catches up on that as he gives her a little smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.  
“I’ll see you later then?”she asks him taking a step forward “After the show?”.  
He passes his hand through his hair “Yeah, if you want to.” She takes another step forward “I do”. He stares intensely at her before darting his eyes at Amir who’s now pressing her to join him to sit down next to her family.  
She mouths a sorry to Yousef and follows Amir to where her family is calling her, as the concert is about to begin. 

She rarely takes her eyes of Yousef who’s now sitting a few meters behind her mother ,who is back in Oslo for a few days, and one of her aunt. She notices that everytime she looks at him, he is either looking back at her or glaring at Amir whenever he is saying something to her about the music or whatever. She is honestly too overwhelmed by Yousef’s obvious jealousy to focus on what the man sitting next to her is saying.  
She can see, as a song comes to an end, that Yousef is listening to what her mother and aunt are saying as they are talking and pointing at her and Amir with smiles. Yousef has a dark look on his face and is sitting still, until her mother adds something that make shim clench his jaw, a sign of strong emotion for him, and he stands up and starts walking towards the exit of the concert area. 

This can’t be happening, thinks Sana, I have to make him stay, to explain to him that whatever my mother might have said about me and Amir isn’t true, that she is just making assumptions. She stands up abruptly, ignoring Amir’s shock as she accidentally knock his elbow, and starts walking quickly behind Yousef. 

“Yousef!” she calls him to slow him down “Wait!”

He turns around after a few seconds in which she can tell that he tried to put on a neutral expression. But she sees right through him, he can’t hide his pain from her. Not when she knows it’s there which gives her the confidence to walk up to him, knowing in her heart that he now cares about her because why else would he be jealous? Why else would he leave? 

“Where are you going? Aren’t you enjoying the concert?” He sighs “The concert is fine, Sana. I’m just tired and it’s not good enough to make me stay.”

She takes another step forward “But you said we’d catch up after the show. Isn’t there anything here that could make you stay?” She is looking right into his eyes now, trying to make her see how much she wants him to stay, how much she cares. He opens his mouth slightly but is attention is diverted by a voice shouting her name. 

And in that moment, Sana swears that she has never been that close to inflicting physical pain to someone. And she doesn’t mean a punch, she means proper pain. Because Amir is here again, walking up to them with a concerned look on his face, probably wondering why she left in a hurry and she wants to scream at him that it’s none of his business what she does. He wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight! But instead of screaming, all she gets is a groan from Yousef who turns around abruptly and leaves after saying “Don’t bother with me Sana, you got plenty of company to keep you entertained.”


	5. A note

Her life changes a week later. 

It’s the week-end and Ahmed has decided to take them all with his friend sand their cousins on a week-end trip to visit their parents and, it seems like her luck is reaching the highest levels, Yousef is visiting his parents at the same time which means that they will see each other again.  
Karim is here as well, having decided to stay in Norway for a bit longer, which Sana suspects has everything to do with Mara and little to do with the “beautiful and enchanted nature of your country, Sana”

She hasn’t had time to talk with Yousef ever since they arrived but as they are now taking a walk all together around the country, she notices how he manages to walk up right behind her and Karim, getting closer the longer they walk. And she is sure that he can hear everything they are talking about. She decides to use his eavesdropping tendencies to her advantage when Karim asks her about Amir.

“I noticed that you and your colleague seemed pretty closed at the concert last week. Anything happening here?”  
“You’re too nosy for your own good, Karim”  
“Why does everyone keep telling me that? Seriously, is there anything between you two?”  
“No there isn’t. He probably wishes there was but there isn’t I promise you.” And when she hears the sigh that Yousef lets out when she replies, she is sure that he is listening.  
“It’s a shame,” says Karim, “He seems like a good match. All proper and everything.”  
“I’m not one to fall for someone simply because he seems perfect on paper.”  
“No, no I never thought you were. But I think he looked really nice, the kind of guy easy to get a crush on.”  
“Well, I’m not one for fleeting attraction or crush.”  
“Love or nothing, eh?”  
“Yeah, something like that.” 

She feels Yousef’s eyes burning her neck, as if he was pressing her to keep on talking. And so she does.  
“I don’t give my heart easily and, once given, it is given for ever.”  
“You’re breaking my heart on his behalf, the guy looks really into you.”  
“I honestly doubt that he is so attached. Besides, I bet that he will find another distraction soon.”  
“So you think, that he can just move on from you easily? Are you one of these people who thinks that men are inconsistent and just go from one woman to another?”  
“Oh no, that’s not what I meant at all! It’s just that I’ve seen him getting a crush on at least 3 women before me so I know that he easily falls for someone. But,” and she make sure to articulate and insist on these words, “Don’t worry, I know that not all men are so fleeting with their attention and love and that a lot of you are capable of loving for years and years and of staying true to one person.”  
“My ex probably wouldn’t agree with you, but I’m glad to see you’re not putting us all in the same box,” chuckles Karim. 

As he says these words, they reach the parking lot. Karim keeps on walking when she stops before reaching the cars.  
She feels Yousef stopping behind her, his body close to her as she shivers in anticipation of what he is going to do. Because after everything she just said, she knows that he is going to react. 

Before she has time to decide whether or not she should turn around to face him, she hears his name being called from the other side of the parking lot. It was Karim calling him to get into his car for the drive back to the house. She hears him sigh behind her and knows that the moment has passed as he moves beside her to walk up to Karim. But as he does so, his fingers brushes her arm and she looks up at him but he’s already on is way to the car, shouting at Karim to calm down and get his patience level checked by a doctor. 

Even if he didn’t look at her, she knows that he did it intentionally. He reached out for her, telling her that he had heard her. 

Right at this moment, she sees another car coming into the parking lot. And to her surprise, her brother Elias is the one driving it.  
He had been away on a trip for a documentary he was making with his usual group of friends – Even, Mikael, Mutasim and Adam, who are with him now- for a few months and was only supposed to come back next week but given the smug look on his face as he takes in his family’s surprise, it had been a planned lie.  
The boys get out of the car and Elias goes to hug his parents when Yousef calls his name. 

And it seems that suddenly all hell breaks loose as the boys all realize at the same time that Yousef is here and they all shout and run towards him, hugging him so tight that Sana is truly afraid that they might break his bones.  
She hadn’t realized until now, how much her brother and the boys must’ve missed Yousef and how much he had missed them in return. They used to be so tight and close that her heart breaks a little at the thought that she was in some way responsible for their pain. 

She watches from afar as they all force Yousef to join them in their car, telling him that they have so much to catch up on. She can see him trying to argue that they should catch up with Elias’s family first but they refuse to listen, telling him that they haven’t seen him in years except whereas Elias has only been away from his family for a few months. They explain that they just need to drop their stuffs at his parent’s house and that they want to take him on ferry over the lake nearby.  
Yousef gives in and joins them in the car and she is left watching him get into the car. 

He looks right at her when the car drives past her and she can swear that he is saying her name. And all she wants to do is get in a car and follow him to the house and finally deal with what is happening between them.  
Of course it seems that her family has other plans as they all take their time to get into their car, laughing about Elias’s return and planning a diner for this evening. 

She feels like she’s boiling as she nervously waits for everyone to get into the car and during the whole way back to the house. She just wants to arrive before the boys have left, to be able to look at Yousef and she has no idea what she will do but she knows that she has to see him now. 

Unfortunately, her car arrives around 10 minutes after his as a note left by her brother on the table explains. So he’s gone. Not forever but at least until tonight and although she’s waited eight years before seeing him again, a few hours suddenly seems unbearable to her. She just wants to know how he feels and wants him to know how she feels. If there’s any hope for them in the future and and if he’s forgiven her for what happened all these years ago.  
She curses herself for not insisting more to her family to get faster back to the house. How is she supposed to know and deal with everything now? He seemed so moved back at the end of the trip and the way he looked at her and said her name, almost too intensely, with a sort of desperation in his eyes. 

With tears in her eyes, she goes to her room and finds a small piece of paper folded under her door. Her hands shaking, she bends down to pick it up and opens it.

 

_Sana,_  
I forgot my phone in somebody’s car so I can’t call you or text you, which, trust me, I would’ve done instead of writing this if I had been able to because what I have to say is really important. I’ve told Elias I needed to go to the bathroom to get time to write this. Sorry if it looks like a mess. Remember that Jane Austen book I read when Vilde recommended it? Persuasion it was called. Well, I feel a bit like he Captain Wentworth writing that he can’t hold it in any longer and that he must confess his love for Anne. You’ve probably noticed that my behaviour towards you has changed recently (Please tell me you have, you’re too smart and know me too well to not have picked up on the differences!) from when I was a dumb idiot resenting you and thinking I wanted to have nothing to do you with you when in reality I want to have everything to do with you. I want to do everything with you. I haven’t stopped loving you since I realized I was in love with you at 17. And I’m never going to stop loving you. And I hope you still love me. I pray you still love me.  
Your conversation with Karim, made me hope and gave me the confidence I needed to confess my feelings. I knew you knew I was behind you and listening . You know me so well, I felt you were talking right to my heart. I hope you can forgive me for my cold behaviour earlier on when we first (re)met. I have completely forgiven you for what happened all these year ago, I just want to know if you might be ready to consider me once again, to love me once more because I cannot live without you.  
And if I ever made you feel like I wasn’t interested in you (how could that ever be possible? When you’re so perfectly you), it was all pretend, even to me, trust me. I love you more than I ever did and I’m torn between hope and agony right now because I don’t know when you’re going to read this, and if you do feel the same way that I think you feel.  
I’ll come here as soon as I’m done with the boys. Elias is calling me now and I must go but I’ll be back as soon as I can convince him to let me go. I promise. In the meantime, know that we’re going to the ferry. One look from you will convince me, come meet me anytime if you can and want.  
Desperately waiting for you,  
Yousef 

 

Without a second thought, she storms out of her room, grabbing the car keys from the table in the hall and running to the car parked outside. 

She drives as fast as she can, which might seems ridiculous because she knows he is coming back but she just can’t wait to see him and to look at him and she doesn’t think her heart has ever beaten so fast in her chest than it does now, reaching the ferry dock in ten minutes.  
She steps out and runs to the departure area, looking around, trying to find the group of men. 

Finally, she hears laughter on her side and sees them walking across the docks, getting ready to get on the ferry. She takes a few seconds to regain her breath before walking over to them. None of them has spotted her when she arrives although she can see how nervous Yousef even if he is trying to hide it. Standing behind Elias, she speaks up.

“Hello, guys.”

She is still a little breathless and she is too nervous to say more than these two words but she doesn’t need more. Yousef’s head rises up in a second at the sound of her voice, his eyes widening, his body freezing as she stares into his eyes, trying to convey all her feelings. 

Thankfully, the boys seem to understand that something is happening between them and they slightly part, to let her walk up to him. He is still silent as she raises the piece of paper that she found in her room in front of his face. His eyes go from the paper to her eyes to her lips to the paper to her smile to her hands to the boys behind them and back to her face. She doesn’t think she ever seen him so struck by his emotions as he is now. His voice is raspy and low when he speaks.  
“Boys, could you walk away please?”. 

Sana can see them hesitating, not too sure of what is happening before Elias speaks up “Sana?”. She gives him a slight nod and he grabs his friends towards the ferry. “We’ll go then, join us if you want later on.”

They both nod at them. After a few minutes that seem an eternity, waiting for the ferry to leave the dock, they are finally left alone watching the boat going away and then turn to face each other. 

Without talking, she grabs his hand, sensing the shiver going through his body as she walks them to quiet area further down on the side of the lake.  
And it seems that time slows down, and all that matters now is the two of them standing in the sun on the side of the water.

 

“It remind me of another dock and another sun, a sunset,” says Yousef. And it’s her turn to shiver now at the sound of his voice.  
“The day you told me you’d come back,” says Sana, strengthening her grip on his hand.  
“And I did”  
“You did”  
“Do you still want me then ? Even after I left ?”. His brows are furrowed, as if he really doubted that she could want him. Finding herself unable to put words to her feelings the way he did in his note, she simply replies:

“Well you still want me even after I made you leave don’t you ?”

He grabs her face in his hand, making her catch her breath, and he breathes out “Yes, yes I do.” She stands on her toes to put her forehead to his, breathing him in, enjoying the sheer fact of his presence, his body close to hers and the fact that he loves her, he loves her, he wants her, he loves her…

“We’re good, aren’t we?” he chuckles  
“Yeah, yeah we are!” she smiles.

And then she is hugging him and he is hugging him back and everything feels right in the world. Because they are together again and they are going to stay that way. 

 

“I love you” she whispers against his neck, making him shiver and holding her tighter, “I never stopped loving you. What happened between us, it wasn’t because of a lack of love on my behalf, I promise you that.”

He stays silent for a few seconds before loosening his arms around her, putting his hands on her waist “I thought I was over you once but I know now that I wasn’t. I swear I haven’t stopped loving you, I swear I’ve never loved anyone but you. I can’t even look at anyone but you, Sana.”

She caresses his cheek and asks “Not even Mara?”. He tightens his grip on her waist “Mara? You couldn’t have possibly thought…? She was just a distraction. One that I highly regret, trust me, but she was never anything serious. Nothing happened between us, I promise you!”  
“I wouldn’t blame you if it had. I had no right to claim your heart after all these years. After pushing you away like I did.” She looks down at their feet, “You would’ve been completely in your right to fall for someone else.” He chuckles “Not in my right mind, no. You’ve always been there Sana. Everytime I met someone new, I compared them to you without meaning to. It used to drive me mad because all I wanted at first was to forget about you, to be free from you, to get over you. But you didn’t let me, you stayed with me even when I didn’t realize it.” 

She smiles at his confession “I realized I wasn’t going to love anyone else than you as soon as I put the phone down that night.” She doesn’t need to explain what night she is talking about. He knows. She slides her hands on his neck, caressing the hair at the base of it.

“So...I am right in thinking that you declined that proposal from the handsome doctor Mara told me about because of me? Because even if I was gone, you didn’t want anyone but me?” he asks as he presses his forehead against hers.  
“No, I just thought he wasn’t rich enough,” she pouts.  
And his laugh when he hears her reply is a sound she wishes she could put on a record and replay everytime she wants because it encapsulates so much joy and happiness and love.  
“Only the money for you is that it?”  
She shrugs “A girl has her needs”  
“And what might those be?” he asks with a smile.  
She drops the pretend act and simply says “You.”

They stay like that, forehead against forehead for a while before sitting down on a nearby bench. He listen to her explaining how she felt when he came back to Oslo and everytime they met afterwards, how she thought he was with Mara and then her relief when she realized he wasn’t. How she noticed him getting friendlier with her, how happy that made her and how finally the evening of the concert was the moment she realized he cared for her and she can’t resist teasing him about his obvious jealousy. 

After he explains how overwhelmed he felt listening to her talking with Karim during their walk and how he hurried to write her the note, they stay silent for a while until she asks her the question she’s been wanting to ask for a few days.

“At the diner, the day before the concert… Karim told a story about you and him at the mosque. And...”  
“And you’re wondering what made me a Muslim again?” he finishes her question with a smile.  
And to hear him say these words, to hear him declare that he is a Muslim makes her happier than she ever thought it would. “Yeah, I am.”

“Well, I think I went back to Islam thanks to you in a way. After you broke it off and I left for America,” he holds her hand as he mentions their separation,“I felt like Islam was an obstacle to my happiness while still pulling me in and requiring my attention in the back of my mind. I met Karim in N-Y and he brought me to an amazing mosque after we had had several talks about religion. And I was so full of sadness and anger, but I came to realize that I couldn’t go through life on my own and that Allah had been calling me for a long time. To trust Him. And so...I guess I finally answered.” He smiles when he says this as she rubs her thumb over his hand.  
“And it helped me a lot to get better, to focus on something bigger than myself, to find solace in faith and prayers. I have to confess that it might have been a way for me to keep in touch with you at first, because it reminded me of you so much. Although, I had sworn I had closed my heart to you and I was harbouring not such nice feelings for you, or so I thought, for a while.”

“It’s alright, they were justified. I ruined everything we had back then because I was all reason over heart and didn’t give us a chance.” She leans on his shoulder. “But I’ve been thinking about my decision, that I was so heartbroken to make all these years ago, and trust me I was. I don’t think I ever cried that much.” He leans his head one hers, rubbing his fingers on her shoulder.  
“And as much as it might have hurt me, and you, I don’t think I regret it. Because when I look at us now, and how we grew up apart from each other, learning and experiencing life on our own. I truly believe that, as painful as it might have been sometimes, it made us stronger and better fitted for each other. We will enjoy our time together even more now, it will be more precious because we will remember how it felt to be alone.”

He sighs against her ear “You’re too wise for me Sana Bakkoush, you’ve always been.”

“Bakkoush-Acar,” she whispers after a few seconds as she wraps her arms around his side.  
He stays stills under her. “What did you say?”

“I said Bakkoush-Acar.” She hears him take a deep breath. 

“Why?”  
“Because that’s what I want to be. That’s who I want to be if you’ll let me,” she replies looking up at him. 

“If I’ll let you? Don’t make me cry.” 

She presses a light kiss on his cheek, feeling more sure than ever, more sure than she did all these years ago when she said yes to him “I just thought we should stop wasting time.”  
He lets out what sounds a lot like a repressed sob “I’m fine with that plan.”

“Good, I’m setting it in motion.”


End file.
